China Mieville gave a reading tonight, as part of the Clarion West series of summer readings in science fiction/speculative fiction. It was quite a treat: China read a chapter from his as yet unfinished new novel, which I am happy to say is set in the fabulous and tragic city of New Crobuzon, twenty years after the events of Perdido Street Station. In a not-yet-published essay, my friend Carl Freedman writes about how Mieville is a great urban writer; he gives an almost Dickensian or Joycean sense of the currents of city life–even though his city, unlike Dickens’ London or Joyce’s Dublin, is entirely imaginary. The background textures of city life were an important part of the power of Perdido Street Station; the subsequent novel, The Scar, though set in the same world, drew us away from New Crobuzon to a very different kind of city, interesting but not as rich (I mean the city was not as rich; the two novels, I feel, are equally rich, in their different ways). China said he hoped to have the novel finished by the end of this year, if not earlier, which would mean a publication date of about a year from now, summer 2004. It was nice to get a tantalizing glimpse of it, while we are waiting.
China Mieville reading
China Mieville gave a reading tonight, as part of the Clarion West series of summer readings in science fiction/speculative fiction. It was quite a treat: China read a chapter from his as yet unfinished new novel, which I am happy to say is set in the fabulous and tragic city of New Crobuzon, twenty years after the events of Perdido Street Station. In a not-yet-published essay, my friend Carl Freedman writes about how Mieville is a great urban writer; he gives an almost Dickensian or Joycean sense of the currents of city life–even though his city, unlike Dickens’ London or Joyce’s Dublin, is entirely imaginary. The background textures of city life were an important part of the power of Perdido Street Station; the subsequent novel, The Scar, though set in the same world, drew us away from New Crobuzon to a very different kind of city, interesting but not as rich (I mean the city was not as rich; the two novels, I feel, are equally rich, in their different ways). China said he hoped to have the novel finished by the end of this year, if not earlier, which would mean a publication date of about a year from now, summer 2004. It was nice to get a tantalizing glimpse of it, while we are waiting.